MathiasXII.7240

I'm very happy that the range nerf has NOT been applied to the Deadeye in this patch... I just hope it's intentional since we didn't see anything posted here about it. Thank you!

This sounds like an interesting idea. I don't know why I never even thought of the celestial side for a scourge since it's obvious it covers more territory for defense/healing/power/condi. I was struggling mixing some seraph and plaguedoctor. The only thing I would have done different is toning down the whole condition duration bonuses since shades bonus will overcap the condi duration, Replacing (without food) 2 boots/gloves/mantle or (with food) amulet, 1 accessory and backpack with Seraph stats did the trick while keeping the essential stats intact.

I'm quite excited about the majority of these changes. I hope the whole firebrand change will be well executed (I didn't saw the regeneration rate of pages nor if there will be adjustments in tomes cooldown). I was surprised about Holosmith power boost. I'm quite excited for the reaper damage boost. The chill burst will make condi reaper even more bleeding! Wee. Everything was okay I agree/disagree somewhat until I read these lines ... : Wth, and why?! Now a ranger shoots a bow farther than a Sniper snipes with a friggin' rifle ? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! Who thinks it's a good idea to reduce the range of a sniper for ANY reason? A sniper, by definition, is suppose to be the farthest shooting class, like the Chronomancer, as I would assumse, should be the class that has better understanding of time manipulation techniques (slow, quickness, alacrity) and now is probably the least use class to give these boons XD. Please consider not going forward with the reduced range.... please ?

Item : Guardian Angel Cape Type : Backpack Skin Level : (any) Accquired : Skin from the Extra Life 2022 Pack Race : Charr (female) Profession : Guardian Issue : Cape hovers over charr instead of wearing it. Screenshot (Hero pannel + in game) : https://imgur.com/a/DSDFfPS

+1 on the idea of flamethrower scrapper. The natural perma stability + constant barrier is super tanky for starters. You can then fine-tune your specs/skills/traits/runes/sigils/stats to your liking to determine exactly how tanky you want to be.

Please note : There are PLENTY of topics on these forums that have been open to criticize each and every balance patch for each and every class. If you need to express your anger about something, just a heads up, this is probably not the best topic to do so. Please note 2 : This is coming from a mainly PvE player. I seldomly play WvW or PvP so I don't know at what point this topic has any value to those who exclusively play these game modes. When I read balance patches, I have to think it probably isn't easy for the team to read all the messages following the patch. Instead of focusing on the "Oh nice, I like this change", it often starts with a waterfall of complaints about things that has not been considered or anger against changes. When I scroll through these comments, I find myself having a very unpopular opinion about this. I think the balances patch got out of hand in the latest years of GW2, but the latest changes has been fun! Of course, I do not agree with all changes that has been made, but I do notice a huge improvement in build diversity. I do try out and keep using traits I haven't used for years. I use weapon attacks that have been long forgotten in the past. For my case, I found interesting the idea of the chrono wells giving alacrity at the beginning of the well and healing at the end. I'm also pretty excited in the upcoming change for berserker that it's toughness will not take a hit while in berserk mode. I'm pretty excited about the Mesmer having it's distortion skill available in all specs. The core specs still needs a little love IMO, but we're slowly getting there! Before April, I dreaded any balance patches and joined the criticizing of others since it seems to me like it was mindless nerfs that completely destroyed some of my builds without giving me anything to counterbalance the loss of DPS/Boons/Condi/etc. Let's face it, the first balance patch was a disaster as well but for many reasons we won't cover here, but let's say expansion launch + balance patch wasn't the best idea. However, the whole process and result has improved immensely! Now I see it as a fun opportunity to try it out and decide how it makes my build better or worse, and how to adjust. I had to adjust since April, but I honestly did not feel I had the need to craft a new set of equipment because "Well now this <type of build1> is kitten, I'll have to gear toward stats for <type of build 2>". So I just wanted to say a very sincere thank you to the balancing team for your work in the recent patches. I am very pleased with the changes even if I had to do some mourning here and there about awesome skill/traits/runes in the past. So, did any of you also saw a positive change in balance patches? And then anything that still needs improvement? What would you like to say?

I admit it is a very confusing and vague statement, because it can range in anything from your weapons, your kits (does the grenade count? does the mortar count?), your belt (is the grenade belt skill count?), your turrets (does the rocket turrent count ? is the net a missle?) to thing you reflect (if you reflect any "missle weapon projectiles" towards the enemy, is that considered a hit from a missle weapon ?)

Are you serious ?! Yeah I was oblivious to that. Okay, it is seriously ef'ed up to put such pressure on devs. They shouldn't be the ones who decides what is balanced, they should be the one who makes the magic happen as this is usually enough on their plate as is. What saddens me is that they received angry mobs and death threats over this, but I don't think any devs would be willingly making decisions on changes they don't feel confident about. If they do, they probably didn't know what they were getting themselves into. I also blame the management about this, not the devs. This has me wondering though about their thinking process in balance changes and what channel is missing to speak to the right people. I'm pretty sure many players that are used to playing one class in particular would be willingly happy to help them sort this out without necessarily being hired to do so. There's a passion about this game as we can see by very angry reactions to balance changes that suggests that some of the best players could help out.

I love these kind of threads and I hope GW2 teams pays attention to what is said here, because it really brings a more constructive to what happend and how to manage it later on. I do agree with OP's point being the message. Completely outside of any specs conversation, I'd even push this a lil' more specific and say they completly miss the mark as to expectation management. Having a good considerable amount of experience in software development, managing expectation is the key to so many things! Everything you say has a weight. It especially has a greater weight if people care about it. Having an excellent software with very bad expectation management got some companies almost to dust, while other companies where the software wasn't all that good, but expectation management was spot on, it was still thriving. I think it also applies to gaming industry. What I think happened is : - *Announcement* : We're doing a long awaited and long overdue updates on professions with quarterly updates, starting June 28th. - *Expectations from ANET Team* (I have no idea what they are, so I'll leave this blank) - *Expectations from players* AAH Finally, after so many years having lacks of build variety, a stagnation in metas, skills and traits that became completely useless, nerfs/OP buffs, etc., they're FINALLY gonna address the game imbalance. On a sidenote, I was actually quite surprised they announced such a big update on such a short notice, but that's because, like other players, I had HIGH expectations on all these balance changes. My expecations were so high, that I forgot to read about the quarterly part, which made me think it was going to be delivered all in one go. I don't know what were the expectations in ANET Team, but I'm pretty sure the gap was probably unexpected, but should have been expected though. I think there's also trust issues about updates that has grown amongst the community in a series of failed expectations in balance patches, except expectations were not too high, so the disappointment was limited. When this pattern is repeated on a much bigger scale update, that's when things got sour real quick! So question to y'all. What made you lose trust in patches ? Is it that you don't feel heard? Is it that the balances patches don't meet your expectations?

I reaaaally don't think the healing potential of a Heal rev is going to be affected anywhere near the extent you suggest. Apart of Ancien Echo giving Rejuvenation, which I find stupid since you'll mostly be Heal rev under Herald, many skills have either added more healing procs around actions. Natural harmony heals more, Rejuvenating assault, Energy expulsion, Healer's gift (after dodge roll), Words of censure (blinding) all now give direct healing, Serene Rejuvenation has a better HTO, Project Tranquility and Natural harmony also has higher healing scaling and a tad more needed condition cleansing all around. How is any of this making the Heal Rev that much weaker ?

Well, not playing Druid regularly like you did in Raids, it is true that I might not see the big picture of changes in Druid and I might be missing the point of enabling more variety to Druid builds. I'll wait patiently for the update to be up and running to test this out and see how it plays. Perhaps passive astral force generation will promote a more Astral/Glyph oriented build. I'll give the benefit of the doubt.

I don't understand how the unique buffs of ranger spirits or spotter makes a ranger that stronger. I also don't see how banner made the warrior that strong. Most meta were revolving around banners. I would agree with you that it may be a good change that uniqueness of buff should make choices easier and more varied in Raid by either removing them all or granting all classes a unique buff, but that's not what's happening here. It does make it easier, but for the wrong reasons. As a druid, you accept that a whole specialization have traits that won't help your DPS outside of boons. You also accept that your pet is weaker. You also accept that your specialization weapons do crappy damage. The only thing you have left is spirits that now affects only 5 and give boons any other characters can give. You have nothing left that makes you desirable DPS or support wise, because other classes DPS or support wise can do better than you now. The problem is that they didn't balance unique buffs with something else that is worth the trade. Warrior and Druid will most likely be forgotten, or even rejected, in any comps because of their shortcomings.

Yeah I left them out, but you're right. How many times did we use any utilities specific to races (Except Norn Ranger bear transformation in WvW combined for 1HKO and tons of laughs at the launch distance)? I do agree that whatever build you play, when you have to choose only 3 utility skills + 1 elite skill, the choice is often obvious. All efficient builds also boils down to 2-3 build blueprint with SOME variations, but the utility skills are often obvious choices that are always the same.

I admit I was very excited when they announced a much needed balance change as I was hoping it would answer the following : What important role have a [classname] in my Raid/Fractal/Open world (PvE) or WvW/PvP party ? What awesome synergy could have if all 9 classes with mixed specialization could be in a party together? All in terms of Boon, Damage, Pressure tolerance, CC, Healing, Tanking, Unique playstyle, etc. What core traits and specializations are currently lacking (both OP and UP) and how can we improve ? What weapons are not quite there in terms of using them regularly (ex: Guardian Hammer, Ele Staff, Necro MH dagger) and how it could complement the class'/specialization arsenal? What we got that are decent : Lower skills cooldown and lower boon duration, encouraging more an active gameplay. I was a little skeptical about thief at first but I understand stealth abuse was annoying and you can still stealth. Making regen effective in some skill mechanics. Toning down some skills that were a lil' too advantageous (I'm not speaking about Death Perception) Eliminating some mechanics that were somewhat of a good idea at first, but not something you'd keep playing or using in the long run, and replace it with better usable traits (ex: Rev's Healing orbs). What we got that highly annoys me and that I don't quite understand : Incoherent changes (Ex: Warrior fury in condi spec to improve critical). Some confusing changes I don't understand why they were necessary. Ex: Revenant's Ventari. I don't quite understand what was wrong in the first place, and why the changes looks more like unbalancing than balancing. Natural Harmony didn't need a scaling, it is ALREADY a mindblowingly powerful healing. Now it's just even more powerful at the cost of the tablet not healing while traveling ? wth. Is it to balance changes with removing Healing Orbs ? I'm so glad now I can wave my tablet like a tw*t to annoy people in Mistlock over having an actual healing mechanism attached to moving the tablet with a cooldown that was making me think about strategic placements and wasn't a problem to begin with! YAY No one will care about about class you play, as long as you provide [boonname] and/or DPS and/or CC. Literally nothing else matters about your class. Unique boons specific to classes are more and more things of the past. This is actually a big problem for me since many of the builds that were build around these unique boons were hanging by a thread since it's the only thing they got left. I can't imagine a Druid or Banner Warrior having a predominant role in a team anymore. Why bother use them when other classes can do a way better job? That could mean that classes and elite specs might be rejected and off the radar for good now in any situations, as many classes can provide amazing healing, provide the same boons and all have more CC/DPS/Utilities than Druid, as an example. R.I.P. Druid Nothing is done to the majority of traits that are useless. They are still useless. Many traits and skills that are actually used (including boons to 10 not 5), both in elite specialization and core specialization, gets so many changes it can invalidate some builds completely (I'm speaking about Death Perception)... and this happens too often, making many players reluctant to play anything that is off the chart, yet playable in it's own way anymore. You want to grow attached to your class and it's playstyle, but you know you just can't since it'll change at some point. "Nice, this plays very well! Finally a setup I like to play. Ha, don't get too used to it, they'll make it bland and unreliable in a future patch." is becoming a sad joke amongst the GW2 community. You say you make changes so that DPS class will be more self reliable. Does that mean that you don't care about anything else than DPS classes ? Oh... wait... I already know the answer :P. I hope the full list of changes will be more promizing, but the book's cover isn't attractive.

Right, I forgot about the gathering tool ! 🙂

Flax seed isn't that hard to get, either. It's just a long process. You go do these every day with all your characters : 1. Verdant Brink : Map lowest floor, At the top of the circle of the weird Steam logo located near Jaka Itzel. 2. Bloodstone Fen : floating isle east of Zealot's Overlook + highest floating isles 3. Draconis Mons : drop down in empty space north/west of Heathen's Hold. There's a cliff under the last cliff before hitting water. Go inside crevace. 4. Seitung Province : There's a mini garden of flax south of the waypoint near Seitung's Harbor at the other side of the building. 5. Tangled Depth : Start from the Order of Whispers Camp Waypoint and follow the cliff on the north side towards East. Past the Tangled Descent Vista, you'll see a drafts that will lead the way to an entrance at your left (Arboreal Overlook POI). Go inside, hallway on the left, through the stomp wall and loot the flax there. This path is more dangerous though. There's probably other spots as well! Do these every day (takes 150 flax seed per equipment piece, including two hand weapons) and you'll get enough flax for every armor piece in 10 days top if you do it with 4 characters. The sprockets part is quite tricky as there's only one really cheap way to slooowly get em', which involves going into a player home instance which has a node on a new day. However, there's many other runes you can equip in the meanwhile. Torment is just one of them.

I'll have to be quite honest and say the Specter is not bad at all. I've been using a trio condi build for a while in PvE and it's surprisingly powerful ! It takes full advantage of the thief's traits that raises bleeding/poison/torment damage and sometimes duration. What I like is the sustain part that the thief lacks. It is a very forgiving espec compared to other thieves build not involving IP or defensive equip. P.S.: I know there's probably room for improvement in the build posted, but I find it plays just fine for my needs.

I ran a hammer/twin axe Marau Untamed build for a while and I'm quite satisfied with the specialisation despite any unpopular opinion. If I compare with my power soulbeast build, which is still my favorite build, I have an easier overall PvE experience being able to perform AoE damage more easily. I like the Axe unleash attack! I think the best way I could describe it's gameplay is really "Power CC!", where you remain powerful while your best defense is disabling your enemy. There is some strong survival utility as well (that healing skill!). I didn't find it any less strong than the Soulbeast with the right traits. This might no be factually true, but it isn't that obvious. I do agree though there's that tiny detail missing to make it a distinct spec over others. It does feel somewhat of a cheap implementation of just slapping the Beastmode's skills on pets . Seriously wth... it is so cheap that even the description is the same as many skills refer as YOU doing something instead of the pet! https://imgur.com/KIWrUqT Unleashing pet giving it skills that has nothing to do with the pet and Unleasing Ranger that only fully works with a single weapon also feels very cheap. At least there's some decency in term of traits available related to who's unleashed.

and it hurts... a lot ! Any build that didn't have self sustain healing abilities could at least have an interesting alternative for LI players (ex: mirage). I'm not mad about the nerfs because it discourages solo playing as GW2 feels lonely most of the time. I'm mad because someone somewhere doesn't understand that there needs to be both accessible builds and difficult builds to play. Easier builds are safer and fun. Difficult builds are more rewarding on damage and strategy and drops/rewards/game content access (ex: Raids). Rune of tormenting, Battlescars and Invigorating Precision are all options that makes it more fun for casual play (and expensive for the runes) and does give you little to no offensive advantage over other runes or skills. Once you're more skilled, you'll often ditch those for far more advantageous traits or runes to give you the offensive advantage. What they actually do with these nerfs is punishing those who plays more relaxed or has not the desire to attain absolute skillful expertise to enjoy end-game content, either by choice or by physical/cognitive limitations. I just don't understand that obsession about constantly wanting people to be skilled or killed over having fun.

What team were you placed on? - Reaper's Corridor What team did you expect to be placed on? - Same as selected guild (Griffonfall) Did you change/toggle your selected WvW guild after Thursday night, even briefly? - I toggled it because there was none selected. Have you shard/world transferred recently? - No What is your default world when World Restructuring is disabled? - Crystal Desert